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Dawkins, Colson and the New Left
I have been following (cursorily) the debate between the (what I term) 'Old Secular Left' and the Evangelical Right. Center stage in this recent debate is Richard Dawkins' highly insulting text The God Delusion. In what is a common maneuver among the 'Old Secular Left' in its anti-Christian paranoia, Dawkins seeks to ground all claims to truth in what is immediately visible or at least measurable by so-called rational scientific enquiry. Although it was psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud who stated that religion itself was 'delusional,' and although it was the state-enforced terror of Marxism that had and still persecutes religious belief as a form of 'opiate of the masses' that is incommensurable with socialist economic practices and systems, apparently the most recent anti-Christian polemicist on this score is Richard Dawkins. In a recent article on Dawkins, noted Evangelical spokesperson Chuck Colson http://www.christianpost.com/article/20071227/30654_Is_Religion_Child_Abuse%3F.htm takes Dawkins to task for such bigotry. According to Chuck Colson, the Dawkins book even states so nonchalantly that religious education of children is a form of 'child abuse.' I have seen such an 'abuse of reason' many times before, whether it was in the liberal rag The Christian Century in which Beth Felker Jones argued that spanking one's children according to Jewish and Christian religious practices was somehow 'child abuse' or whether it was in the Civil Court system itself in which parents are trapped between a largely RELIGIOUS worldview of their upbringing and a state-supported psychology that actually resembles a religion more than a scholarly field. Such 'abuse of reason' on the part of Dawkins and others must now cease. Contrary to Dawkins and others who libel religious belief and practice, the Christian tradition (St. John's Gospel 1:1-18) actually seeks a harmony with and a grounding in rationality, namely by equating 'reason' with Christ the Divine 'LOGOS.' This is more fully ensconced in Christian Tradition both through the nearly 2,000 years of Platonic Orthodox Theology in Greece (later in Russia) and also through the Catholic emphasis on 'Faith and Reason' as elucidated by St. Thomas Aquinas. In fact, St. Thomas Aquinas is even studied in secular applied ethics courses throughout America as the quintisential 'Natural law' thinker of the West. Therefore, contrary to such anti-religious bigotry, the Christian Tradition seeks a grounding in rationality as Christ is the source and embodiment of all that is truly rational. So, in conclusion, rather than the 'Old Left' of anti-Christian bigotry, it is time that the Religious Right (in America and in other countries) embrace the newer generation of Progressivists who seek a conversation with rather than polemics against the religious communities of the world. The New Left is difficult to define, but it is hopeful that from liberal Barack Obama to liberal Hillary Clinton to even myself as a 'strange bird' Pro-Life Economic and Social Justice Liberal, we do not seek to cut the cord with authentic religious communities, but instead seek to embrace them. Yours in Christ, Rob J. King--RobJKing 21:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC) Category:Pages to categorize